Jesus or Joseph?

When asked to choose, will Mormons trust Jesus or Joseph Smith? Unfortunately, more times than not, they will choose Joseph. This blog will explore this reasoning of faith. — Matthew 16:15-16, Matthew 10:37-39, Mark 1:16-18

lds tough topics

This is a list, and corresponding links, to some of the tough topics which Mormonism should have to answer. The burden of proof is upon the Mormon. So far, these topics remain to be unproven among intellectuals, scholars, and people of faith. Feel free to add topics by using the comment form below.

5. If the LDS faith is to be the “restored gospel”, what is it a restoration of? Looking back in church history, there is no evidences of anything similar to mormon teaching until the times of Joseph Smith. Church history is rooted in Catholicism and Judaism, not Mormonistic teachings.

6. If the Book of Mormon is “the most correct of any other book on Earth”, then we have an awefully lot of other books that are wrong.

7. If Mormons believe that the Book of Mormon is an accurate, actual account of New World (Americas) history, then why do they not teach it as a history class at their privately-owned university, BYU? BOM studies are cataloged as “religous studies” not history classes. If these classes were ever taught as history, the university would easily be discredited in the academic community.

8. There is no real world setting for the Book of Mormon. The characters and cities and rivers and geographic regions described in the book have yet to be shown to exist anywhere. Contrast this with the Bible, the Bible continues to prove it’s historical accuracy with continued archeologic and academic study. See the Bible vs. Book of Mormon video.

9. Joseph Smith was an arrested treasure hunter (kind word for “con-artist”), a vivid story teller as described by his own mother, and polygamist. It is important to note that David Koresh was all of these things as well.

10. There are no evidences of the metal plates that Joseph Smith claimed to have found and translated into the Book of Mormon. In fact, scholars to this day are adiment that in the times of the BOM that metal making capabilities were not present in the Americas. To date, there are no archeological or circumstantial evidences that these plates ever existed, or even the possibility that they could have been fabricated at the time of the BOM.

11.Blacks were refused the priesthood up until the 1970’s. Women to this date are refused the Mormon priesthood.

12. The Mormon temple endowment ceremony is rooted with Freemason ceremony tradition. It is important to note that Joseph Smith was a mason, as were many early LDS principle leaders. And soon after going through the masonic ceremony, Joseph Smith produced the mormon temple ceremony.